The AI expertise wars are heating up as Meta makes an attempt to poach expertise from OpenAI with $100 million signing bonuses and even greater salaries — however OpenAI CEO Sam Altman says the corporate’s “greatest individuals” have turned down Meta’s provide.
On an episode of the “Uncapped” podcast that aired on Tuesday, Altman, 40, spoke candidly about Meta’s efforts to recruit OpenAI researchers with “large presents.” Whereas Meta’s efforts have been unsuccessful thus far, Altman expressed disbelief on the nine-figure signing bonuses and salaries. The typical worker at OpenAI makes $1.13 million per yr, in accordance with Ranges.fyi.
“They [Meta] began making these large presents to lots of people on our workforce,” Altman stated within the podcast interview. “$100 million signing bonuses, greater than that comp [compensation] per yr. It’s loopy. I am actually comfortable that, no less than thus far, none of our greatest individuals have determined to take them up on that.”
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Altman stated that the explanation OpenAI researchers selected to remain on the startup as an alternative of transferring to greater salaries at Meta was as a result of they suppose OpenAI has “a significantly better shot” of reaching superintelligence, or the purpose the place AI surpasses human intelligence in reminiscence, reasoning, and information.
He stated that OpenAI had created a “particular” sort of tradition that wasn’t based mostly on excessive upfront compensation however on the work and the mission of the startup. OpenAI’s mission of growing AI to learn “all of humanity” comes first, with the monetary incentives flowing from reaching that mission, Altman stated.
“I hope that we could be the most effective place on the earth to do [AI] analysis,” Altman asserted.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. Photograph by Justin Sullivan/Getty Photos
Meta has just lately began assembling a 50-person workforce, the Superintelligence lab, and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, 41, is reportedly overseeing the hiring. In accordance with a Bloomberg report final week, Zuckerberg has been providing AI researchers compensation packages starting from seven to 9 figures to affix the workforce.
Zuckerberg desires to tug forward of rivals like OpenAI and Google and make Meta lead the race to attain superintelligence, in accordance with the report.
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Nonetheless, Meta nonetheless seems to be dropping AI expertise. Deedy Das, a principal at enterprise capital agency Menlo Companions, wrote on X that he had heard of three instances final week of Meta dropping researchers to OpenAI and Anthropic regardless of providing them greater than $2 million per yr.
“The AI expertise wars are completely ridiculous,” Das wrote.
Meta is at the moment providing $2M+/yr in presents for AI expertise and nonetheless dropping them to OpenAI and Anthropic. Heard ~3 such instances this week.
The AI expertise wars are completely ridiculous.
At present, Anthropic has the best ~80% retention 2 years in and is the #1 (giant) firm high AI… pic.twitter.com/YSv5UNV5H2
— Deedy (@deedydas) June 10, 2025
Meta has additionally just lately made a hefty funding in change for contemporary expertise. The corporate introduced final week that it was investing $14.3 billion into information labeling startup Scale AI, in return for a 49% stake within the startup and the acquisition of expertise. Scale AI’s 28-year-old CEO Alexandr Wang will reportedly be a part of Meta’s superintelligence workforce in a high management position.
Each Meta and OpenAI have substantial consumer bases. Zuckerberg stated in Might that Meta’s AI assistant has one billion month-to-month lively customers. In the meantime, OpenAI stated in late March that it had 500 million weekly lively customers.
The AI expertise wars are heating up as Meta makes an attempt to poach expertise from OpenAI with $100 million signing bonuses and even greater salaries — however OpenAI CEO Sam Altman says the corporate’s “greatest individuals” have turned down Meta’s provide.
On an episode of the “Uncapped” podcast that aired on Tuesday, Altman, 40, spoke candidly about Meta’s efforts to recruit OpenAI researchers with “large presents.” Whereas Meta’s efforts have been unsuccessful thus far, Altman expressed disbelief on the nine-figure signing bonuses and salaries. The typical worker at OpenAI makes $1.13 million per yr, in accordance with Ranges.fyi.
“They [Meta] began making these large presents to lots of people on our workforce,” Altman stated within the podcast interview. “$100 million signing bonuses, greater than that comp [compensation] per yr. It’s loopy. I am actually comfortable that, no less than thus far, none of our greatest individuals have determined to take them up on that.”
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